Nick Ring of Calgary (red gloves) defeats James Head of Oklahoma City during their middleweight bout at UFC 131 on Saturday afternoon at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider
, PNG

VANCOUVER - If the sport of mixed martial arts wanted to show its kindler, gentler side Saturday at Vancouver's Rogers Arena, it failed miserably. UFC 131: Dos Santos vs Carwin was, as it was the previous time the world's premier MMA promotion came to town, a brutal, heavy-hitting affair with more than a little blood spilled. Not that any of the 14,685 fans present minded.

In the main event, two gargantuan headsmashers, Shane Carwin and Junior dos Santos, stood toe to toe and threw haymakers aplenty in their quest for a title shot against Cain Velasquez later this year. When the dust settled, it would be dos Santos who emerged victorious, but he had to work for it.

The big boxer/jiu-jitsu fighter dropped Carwin to his knees late in the first round, took his back and delivered around thirty unanswered full-strength punches to the former interim champ's head as the referee demanded Carwin defend himself or have the fight stopped.

With his face literally chewed up with contusions, his nose flattened and both eyes beginning to swell, Carwin did what no man has been able to do previously: He took the best dos Santos could throw at him and didn't fall. Instead, he stood up defiantly as if to say, “So that's the best you've got, big guy?”

But the following two rounds showed that strength is all well and good but speed kills, as dos Santos jabbed and moved, continuing the damage to the point where Carwin looked like a member of a red-toned rip-off of The Blue Man Group.

The fight was stopped in the third so doctors could ensure Carwin's damage was superficial. Once it was confirmed his vision hadn't been affected, the fight continued and the judges gave the decision – and the ensuing title shot - to the Brazilian.

"When you get big guys hitting each other like that and it goes three rounds, that's impressive," said UFC president Dana White. "A lot of people on Twitter were saying it should have been stopped in the first round. [...] But he went two more rounds so clearly the ref was right to let him go on."

It wasn't a scene for the feint of heart. In fact, it hadn't been since the first fight of the night, when Darren Elkins and Michihiro Omigawa went to war. Elkins was battered by solid counter-punching by the Japanese fighter, though the Vancouver judges went against the opinion of the fans, both fighters, and White himself by giving the victory to the guy who'd been rag-dolled for most of the fight.

White insisted the judges were wrong and said he would give a win bonus to both fighters, after Omigawa was so livid at the decision he literally had to be removed from the cage by security officials.

The doctors earned their money when Canada's Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout and Bahamas-born Thug-Jitsu proponent Yves Edwards clashed. Stout buckled his opponent with a kick to the side, hit him with an uppercut, and then wheeled in a left hook that caught Edwards on the jaw so hard his head spun. The veteran fighter's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell like a plank, crashing to the mat so hard that he remained unconscious as Stout answered post-fight questions.

Edwards would eventually leave the cage under his own steam, but White called it “one of the most vicious knockouts I've ever seen... perhaps THE most vicious.”

Stout was happy to get the KO; "I've been calling myself Hands of Stone all this time and this was the first knockout I've got in like five years," he laughed.

Also headed to the ER was Vagner Rocha, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who found out how hard a kickboxer can kick when Donald "The Cowboy" Cerrone let fly on the former's left thigh, booting it repeatedly and loudly, until Rocha was literally fighting on one leg.

Earlier in the night, perennial lightweight title contender Kenny Florian dropped down a weight class and bested Diego Nunes, despite a loud barrage of boos that could only come from Vancouverites against a Boston native during a Stanley Cup run.

Canadians performed well on the undercard; Winnipeg pro-wrestler Krzysztof "The Polish Experiment" Soszynski had no trouble dominating Mike Massenzio and Albertan kickboxer Nick “The Promise” Ring earned a submission win over American James Head. Canadian fighter Jesse Bongfeldt suffered an early submission loss.